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LA - Dr. Elbert Goodier, 75, shot to death in his Metairie office, 24 March 2016

This hits close. Dr. Goodier was my husband's urologist. He saw him just last week. Very nice man, excellent physician.

Man shoots doctor, walks to nearby restaurant and shoots himself

METAIRIE, La. - An elderly man walked into the office of a doctor and shot him to death before walking out of the medical facility near East Jefferson Hospital and to a nearby Wendy's restaurant where he shot and killed himself in front of customers and employees.

The incident occurred around 2 p.m. in the office building and then the restaurant in the proximity of Houma Blvd. and West Esplanade.

Dr. Elbert Goodier III, 75, a urologist, was the doctor who was shot. The perpetrator has not been identified.

The shootings occurred about 2:20 p.m. Sheriff's Office 911 dispatchers began receiving several calls of a doctor shot at the East Jefferson Medical Office Building, a six-story, brown building located northeast of the hospital's facility.

The shooter walked into Goodier's office and proceeded to a room where the doctor was treating a patient, Fortunato said. With no provocation, the man shot Goodier in the head, Fortunato said.

The man immediately ran from the office. Witnesses spotted him making his way through bushes and across streets to the Wendy's restaurant, located at the edge of the hospital property on West Esplanade.

The man slipped into the business. The female customer who witnessed the incident said she didn't notice the man standing near the front of the restaurant as she placed her order.

Suddenly, workers behind the counter began shouting, "The JPs are coming," the witness said. That's when multiple deputies entered the restaurant with their guns drawn. Fortunato said that's when the suspect shot himself.

"Once the officer made eye-contact with the elderly gentlemen, it appears as though he had taken the handgun, and placed it in his mouth and took his own life," Fortunato said.

Among his many patients was L.J. Strassel, 58, of Covington. Choking back tears, Strassel recalled Thursday how Goodier ordered him to undergo prostate-specific antigen testing and ended up diagnosing him with cancer in December 2010.

Goodier recommended that Strassel have his prostate surgically removed because the cancer was too advanced for “a wait-and-see approach.” The life-changing procedure frightened Strassel, but Goodier assured him, “You will get through it. I am confident you will get through it.”

A surgeon whom Goodier recommended then operated Strassel, who learned the cancer had been contained to his prostate. And Strassel said he has been cancer-free for five years as of Monday.

“Dr. Goodier caught it in time; he told me what to do; he told me who to do it with; and here I am, five years later, able to talk about it,” Strassel said. “He meant a lot to me. ... I am just shocked at what’s happened.”

Jefferson Parish Coroner Gerry Cvitanovich, a former emergency room physician at East Jefferson, was coincidentally at the hospital for a doctor’s appointment. He said that as he walked outside, police had just started cordoning off the scene, and his first thought was that he hoped the victim had not been one of his colleagues.

Unfortunately, it was, Cvitanovich said.

“I knew Dr. Goodier quite well, and ... he was a wonderful guy — I’ll just leave it at that,” Cvitanovich said. “If it is indeed a patient, (Goodier was) not the kind of a physician that you’d expect a patient to get that mad at.”

Englade, the East Jefferson spokeswoman, said Goodier is survived by his wife, Catherine Goodier; a son, Michael Goodier; and two daughters, Christine Ross and Gina Goodier.

He was the uncle of the late Dr. Colin Goodier, 28, who was killed by a passing truck while riding his bicycle in June 2008, inspiring a state law that requires motorists to give cyclists a 3-foot buffer when going around them.